


And you'd stay

by Pyjamagurl



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Feels, Fluff and Angst, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 01:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8351431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyjamagurl/pseuds/Pyjamagurl
Summary: Robert spends the night by Aaron's bedside, and Aaron finally wakes up...





	

**Author's Note:**

> I know there's probably a bunch of versions of this kicking around by now, but I just had to get this out of my system before Monday.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it <3

They let Robert stay mostly because he wont let got of Aaron’s hand. He's stable now, the steady beep of the heart monitor telling them Aaron’s heart is beating at a solid fifty-five beats per minute, and maybe Robert has been watching the monitor for too long. It has dipped a few times, and every time Robert feels his own heart stutter before Aaron’s heartbeat levels out again.

A nurse takes pity on him and brings a blanket and a pillow for him a little after midnight—Chas and Liv are long gone, with reassurances that Aaron is out of the woods for now but they’ll let them know immediately if anything changes—but Robert just puts the blanket on the back of the chair and the pillow on the floor. He’s lowered one side of the bed; Aaron’s hand hasn’t left his since the doctor gave him the tentative all clear, to lean his elbows on the mattress next to Aaron’s legs. 

Aaron still has the mask on his face, unconscious once again. His hair is a curly mess, and his face looks young and tired beneath the cuts and bruises. Robert hates that this is the second time this year that he’s almost lost Aaron for good, hates that he keeps being reminded of how young and fragile Aaron is in hospital bed. 

There’s nothing quite as soul destroying as seeing the love of your life lying in a hospital bed and knowing you can do nothing about it. 

Robert’s thumb grazes over the ring on Aaron’s finger, he stops to look at it. He still can’t quite believe that this is happening. That he’d burst out an angry proposal and Aaron had said yes. They just need to get out of this hospital and back home and then it will be real, they’ll be getting _married_. Robert holds Aaron’s hand a little tighter. 

He feels exhausted, both physically and emotionally, tired in a bone-deep way, but he can’t even imagine closing his eyes when Aaron hasn’t opened his again since he said yes. 

When sleep does take him its from pure exhaustion, Aaron’s hand is still in his, and the heartbeat monitor is still reading a steady fifty-five. 

* * *

Aaron isn’t really sure where he is when he wakes up. For a moment all he knows is that there’s pressure on his knee, and there’s something pressing against his face, and he hurts all over. He blinks slowly, raising his right hand to slowly move the mask off his face. The pressure on his knee is Robert, a hand cupped gently around Aaron’s knee, his head resting on top. 

The world slowly filters in. The steady beep of the machines, the stiff sheets that aren’t his own, the bed that’s too small to be his and Robert’s, the hospital gown, the too-clean smell of a hospital room. He can’t pinpoint where the pain starts. His abdomen probably, his hand too where it had gotten trapped. 

And then there’s Robert. His hair is all flat, and there’s a crease of worry between his eyebrows even though he’s sleeping. He doesn’t look comfortable really; slumped over the side of the bed, neck at an awkward angle, like he’s just passed out with exhaustion more than anything else.

Aaron breathes, lets go of the mask to drop his hand down to Robert’s head, hand brushing softly through Robert’s hair. It hurts a lot more to move than it should, Aaron’s fingers stiff and unwilling. Robert jerks under his fingers, abruptly awake. He sits up too quickly, eyes darting to the monitor—reading sixty-two now Aaron’s awake—then back to Aaron. Aaron slowly looks over at it too, then back to Robert.

‘Hey,’ Aaron says. 

‘Hey,’ Robert breathes, a sliver of a smile. ‘You’re not going to leave me this time?’

It comes out like a question but his face reads like he didn’t mean it to. He looks rattled and exhausted. Aaron looks down at their entwined hands, to the ring on his finger, then back up at Robert. 

‘I’ll try not to,’ Aaron says.

‘You better not,’ Robert says, and there’s tears in his eyes, and Aaron kind of wants to make a joke but instead he just squeezes Robert’s hand. 

‘C’mere,’ Aaron says, tugs Robert towards him. His body is still sluggish though, so instead Robert pushes up from his chair and stoops over him, buries his nose in Aaron’s neck for a moment, Aaron’s hand in Robert’s hair once more. ‘You smell weird…’

Robert rears back with a laugh that leaves Aaron bemused.

‘I went back in the water twice…’ Robert says, they both look at the ring again and it hits home what Robert means. He went back for the ring. The ring that he’d put back in the glove compartment of the Subaru sitting at the bottom of a lake. 

‘You shouldn’t ha—‘ Aaron starts, but Robert cuts him off.

‘I had to,’ he says.

‘Careful there… anyone will mistake you for a romantic…’ Aaron says, and Robert laughs, leans forward to kiss Aaron’s forehead before he sinks back into his chair. ‘Did you sleep there all night?’

‘I wasn’t leaving you.’

There’s too much in Robert’s words, but Aaron would rather too much than too much too little. They’ve been through that before, and though neither of them are particularly good at communicating with one another even now, Aaron has had long since had Robert’s facial expressions worked out. And right now Robert looks terrified.

‘Sorry I scared ya,’ Aaron says softly.

‘Don’t,’ Robert says.

‘What happened…?’

‘James Barton fell off a bridge—‘

‘Is he—‘

Robert doesn’t say anything, but his jaw bunches and his fingers tighten on Aaron’s and that tells him all he needs to know. James Barton is dead. He immediately wonders how Adam is taking it, losing a sister and an uncle (he was never his father, not in anything but blood) in a short space of time. 

‘Adam—‘

‘I haven’t seen him in a bit,’ Robert says, he pats at his pockets like he’s looking for his phone then there’s realisation on his face. ‘Phone died in the water…Vic popped in to tell me they were going home a while ago.’

‘Laughlan…?’

Robert’s face darkens for a second, a blink-and-miss it rage that Aaron knows too well. 

‘He’s fine,’ Robert says, clipped, then softer he says ‘We need to get Liv to stay away from him.’

‘We will,’ Aaron says. ‘Is she—‘

‘Chas said they’d come back in the morning,’ Robert says, his thumb brushes over the ring on Aaron’s finger. ‘Threatened to bring champagne as well to celebrate, but I told her that wasn’t a good idea considering…’

In reality Chas had hugged Robert tightly—the second time in one day—but Robert knew it was in part because Aaron was still too fragile to be hugged in such a way just yet, before she’d looked back at her son and told Robert that he better still be here when they came back. Both of them. 

Robert had promised, fingers wrapping round Aaron’s, and he hasn’t let go since. 

But Aaron doesn’t know that, his gaze drops to Robert’s thumb resting on the band on Aaron’s ring finger. 

‘You’re sure?’ he asks, looking up to meet Robert’s eyes. Robert shifts onto the edge of the bed, bum pushing against Aaron’s knees, he moves his grip on Aaron’s hand. He’s looking at Aaron almost too intently.

‘Don’t even start,’ Robert says. ‘I meant it. No one comes close.’

Aaron’s chest feels too full then, the heart rate monitor dings and they both look at it in surprise as it bleeps eighty-five at them. Aaron scoffs a laugh, embarrassed, but Robert just leans in to kiss him, soft and promising. 

‘I don’t think you’re prepared for a Dingle wedding,’ Aaron says when Robert sits back. 

‘If you’re there,’ he says. ‘I’m ready for anything.’


End file.
